Some people think it’s too early for another Metal Gear Solid, but I wouldn’t expect the developers to let such a great game engine go to waste so soon – they should be able to crank out a few games before doing any major overhauls on this glorious piece of code. Still, the final timer seems to be set to expire on the same day as Microsoft’s E3 presentation. Could it be the Metal Gear Solid franchise coming to Xbox 360? Either way, anyone who doubts that this is for Metal Gear Solid should just take a look at the image above… the website’s metatags are clearly marked up with “MGS” and “Metal Gear Solid” – and with the “5” flashing in the lightning of the flash animation, it seems clear cut what this counter is going to show us next. At least, it seems more obvious than the last timer Kojima Productions did!

note: minutes before publishing this article, I was able to get the timer down to about 10 minutes – I will watch to see if it fades straight to black or if it leads to another image/animation. I will update the article with my results.

UPDATE 1: So far, nothing:
It has just sat there for a couple of minutes. Please comment and let us know if you make any progress, I do believe modifying the URL with the information gained from ShogunGamer’s website might show progress!

I’m with you man, the countdown has been abused. Countdowns should last no more than 48 hours, ever, ever, ever. I just don’t care. Especially a countdown timer leading to another countdown timer. It’s just stupid. It’d not a “haha Gota ya.” It doesn’t make me laugh, cry, angry, roll my eyes… it doesn’t make me do anything but not pay any attention until there’s only about 5 hours left.

Countdown timers are no different than an eBay auction – none of it matters until there’s only about 10 minutes left!

I have been watching the timer for about 30 minutes and the character that flashes with the lightning. Over the 30 minutes, I recorded these:

3ESeSE3eSE3eE3SeES3e3SEe3SEeE3

Now, I don’t know if it’s an S or a 5. From looking at it, I can’t discern a pattern, but I am not particularly good at noticing patterns. I would spend more time recording the characters that appear, but I have other things to do.